Concert Review Orchestra Metropolitan

Concert Review Orchestra Metropolitan

On April 20th,, 2015 at 8:00 pm. the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NAC Orchestra) performed in the Southam Hall at the NAC. The people performing that night was the NAC Orchestra, but there was a marvellous cello soloist during one of the pieces. The NAC Orchestra performed the following pieces; Enigma Variations, Variations, and the fourth symphony of Vaughan Williams.

The first piece, Enigma Variations, consisted of 14 movements. Throughout the piece there were many different timings. In the piece, the timings ranged from Presto to L’istesso tempos. The Orchestra played the piece with no errors in rhythm while maintaining the time that was indicated. An example of this occurred in the 2nd movement when at the beginning the violins started with a nice group of sixteen notes for about 12 bars at an allegro tempo before the rest of the orchestra joined in. The violins did an outstanding job keeping time even with very fast, very easy to mess up parts like that. Also, I enjoyed the balance and blend of the orchestra in the piece. You could hear the beautiful melody line by usually the violin or clarinet, but you could also hear the amazing sound of the double bass behind the melody creating a homophonic texture. Furthermore, the dynamics that were heard in this piece were very gradual crescendos and decrescendos. There were not many sudden changes in this piece, but there were many loud volumes like Fortissimo and very soft volumes like pianissimo. I found that during the fast pieces there were quite a bit more noticeable dynamics compared to the slower pieces. Movement 3 had the most noticeable dynamics of the piece because in that movement I felt the bass line played as loud as they could when the dynamics were fortissimo. Although that part of the piece could have been better balanced, it made the dynamics stand out. Finally, there was a clarinet soloist that sounded wonderful. He played his parts almost like he was singing it. I could feel the emotion during his solos throughout the piece. All in all, the piece was well done and well prepared for the occasion. The piece consisted of all the elements of music at a high degree of success and was a great opener to the concert.

The Second piece, Variations, consisted of 7 variations. The piece was an original theme and the other 6 movements were variations of the original theme. The tempo in this piece was very slow during the first 4 variations, but the final 3 variations were faster at an allegro tempo. The orchestra played the pieces at the correct tempos with the correct rhythms. The articulation in this piece was outstanding. The Orchestra had to use different articulations between the variations making the original theme of the piece sound very original. The dynamics of the piece were a little less controlled that the first one, especially in variations 5 and 7 which were both taken at an allegro tempo. Although the timing was perfect the dynamics was not very well controlled especially in the trombone section. We could hear the slight imbalance that the trombones created while playing the fortissimo a little uncontrolled. But the rest of the dynamics were controlled and well played. The texture for this piece was incredibly homophonic because of the cello soloist Stephan Detro. Stephan Detro was absolutely phenomenal. The emotion he shows during the performance is amazing. My favourite part about Stephan is when his solo part and the violin were playing a call and response. Stephan looks at the violin section making it cleaner and tighter as a whole. It absolutely blew my mind. Finally, this piece was amazingly played with a great soloist playing his part incredibly, guiding the orchestra to the final piece of the night.

The 3rd and final piece, the fourth symphony of Vaughan Williams in F minor, was a 4 movement piece. The piece consisted of very fast allegro tempos except for movement number 2 which was andante. The orchestra followed the tempos as written, but there was one thing that I did not feel during this piece that I felt in the other two. That is the lack of passion and emotion in the piece. The piece was very well played but I wasn’t feeling the same passion that the orchestra exerted in the 2nd piece. It almost feels like the piece lost energy. Anyways, the clarinetist played another solo with a very dark and big sound. I enjoyed this solo more than the other one because the clarinet had a more consistent tone during the solo and it was quite impressive. In my opinion the solo gave the orchestra more passion and energy for the final movement because you can hear the difference in the dynamics and the